


to be a fool while spring is in the world

by LizzieSiddal



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, about to be canon divergent in a matter of hours, mentions of past Jaime/Cersei, moping as the world ends, set after 801
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 09:13:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18546757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizzieSiddal/pseuds/LizzieSiddal
Summary: At least, when his end comes, he will be fighting for the right side.





	to be a fool while spring is in the world

**Author's Note:**

> Written in a rush between 8x01 and 8x02, so this is about to become canon-divergent in a matter of HOURS. But I wanted to write Jaime and Tyrion talking about Cersei and Brienne after his Winterfell trial and this is the result.

 

 

 

On any other night, he would have refused Tyrion’s offer: unlike him, Jaime’s never cared much for drink. More than anything, he feared the wine’s cloying scent and the memories it might bring — memories of a beautiful mouth filled with bitter poison.

Still, the wine Tyrion has been able to find is poor fare indeed, and brings no remembrance of the fine vintages of palace life – rather, it is more reminiscent of the lukewarm piss that passed for ale in the last inn he had stopped along the way to Winterfell. Foul, dismal stuff the Tyrion of old would have refused on principle. Now, his brother merely gives him a half-hearted apologetic shrug, and fills his mug again after Jaime empties it in one gulp with barely a grimace.

Jaime knows his brother all too well. The fact that Tyrion keeps staring at him as he meekly sips his own mug tells him all he needs to know.

“Out with it,” he says, resigned to the barrage of questions inevitably coming his way.

“Jaime. What of the child?”

The child. Trust Tyrion to go straight to the point. “Assuming it exists,” he bites out. It seems to throw Tyrion off.

“If there’s no child, then Cersei would have fooled us both. I believed her.”

“Do you believe it’s mine?”

A beat. Tyrion frowns, and hides the line of his mouth behind his drink. “I don’t know.”

The truth is that no child of theirs was ever truly his. Surely Tyrion, smarter than Jaime by far, had it all figured out a lifetime ago. So why would this be any different? Jaime had stayed by Cersei’s side during Joffrey’s birth. Hour after hour while she sobbed from the pain and spit curses at them all, while that pig Robert was off drinking and whoring, celebrating the coming of his son and heir. Jaime had stood by her side for hours, and when they were finally left alone afterwards, with that strange wailing little thing that had impossibly come out of Cersei finally quiet, he asked only to hold it, to hold it just once. It was stupid of course: she wouldn’t have it. She told him to keep his distance for all their sakes, and Jaime complied. He knows what Joffrey was like, _he knows_ , but back then he’d been a babe like any other. He had been moved to tenderness that first time, thinking the child looked so much like them, like he was _theirs_ , theirs rather than just Cersei’s alone.

“Do you think she ever loved me?” he asks. Surprise and pity flicker in Tyrion’s face for a moment, and he hates himself anew for asking the bloody question, but it’s out there now, and he will have to deal with it.

“In her fashion,” his brother says slowly, looking like he’ll never be drunk enough for this, but soldiering on anyway. “Love never came easily to our sweet sister’s heart. I would know. But if it is any consolation, I doubt she cared for any man like she cared for you. But could she love you as you loved her? Would she have sacrificed anything for you, if it came to that? No. That was never in her nature.”

He thought it would hurt more, hearing it like this. But Jaime mostly feels a hollowness inside him. He has known this for a long time, he realizes. There’s something to be said for clarity, bitter as it is. He doesn’t protest when Tyrion refills both their mugs.

“I will be forty five this month,” he muses. “And I’ve never even kissed another woman.” He has only ever known Cersei’s embrace. With her, he had three children he never held, three children that never bore his name, all of them gone before he could call them his. Myrcella was the only one to ever call him father, and her life slipped through his fingers before the weight of the word truly registered in his thick skull. Nothing he did mattered: it didn’t protect them, it didn’t save them. He cannot justify any of the things he’s done in Cersei’s name to himself. His father had it right – he wasted his life as an irresponsible, glorified bodyguard with little ambition of his own, avoiding responsibilities for as long as he could. There’s no making amends for it, really. He’ll die tomorrow most probably, or the day after that.

He shrugs and raises his drink for a toast. Fakes bravado as only a Lannister can: “at least, when my end comes, it’ll be fighting for the right side. To small comforts.”

Tyrion reaches out, and wine spills a little sloppily as the mugs knock against each other. There is little to celebrate but it’s nice, still. He pretends not to see the sympathy shining in his little brother’s eyes.

“Well, I won’t pretend I am not grateful we are on the same side again,” Tyrion says lightly, sipping his wine. Suddenly his smile twists, turning shrewd, like he would when they were little and he had thought of a particularly clever joke to amuse him. “I am not the only one who’s glad to see you in this freezing hellhole, I wager.”

“Ah, yes, I am the most popular fellow in all of the North. All those brave Northern men, lining up to shake the Kingslayer’s hand.” Not the one he’d used to shove Bran Stark out of a window, of course — that hand was rotting away, abandoned somewhere in the Riverlands.

“You don’t have many admirers, it’s true, but I can think of one at least who seems very devoted to you.”

Jaime blinks once. Twice. And then it hits him.

“Oh, we are not having this conversation.”

Tyrion laughs, delighted: “oh, we are! Look at you! Are you _blushing_?”

“I am drunk and next to the fire.”

“You _are_. Oh, I never thought I’d see the day I could get drunk with my brother and talk about women who are in no way related to us. Is this what it feels like? Let me enjoy it.”

He never could follow his brother’s moods when he was like this – too charmed by his own cleverness by far. He doesn’t want to drag Brienne into the conversation, he realizes. He is reluctant to expose whatever it is they share to the casual cruelty of Tyrion’s sharp eye and sharper wit.

“How come you never told me about that business with the bear?”

Jaime smiles despite himself: it had all sounded rather gallant, the way Brienne told it during the trial, as if Galladon of Mourne himself had shown up to defend a lady’s honour. The reality had been rather scarier and a lot less dignified.

“I told you we ran into trouble on the road with Bolton’s men.”

“Human-shaped trouble! You apparently forgot to share about your brave rescue of a not-so-fair maiden against an actual bear! And all that without a sword, or a hand to wield it with! Were you hoping to have a song written about your brave deeds, dear brother? To steal a kiss from the Maid of Tarth? Not that she wouldn’t have given you one gladly, the way she tells that story…”

It’s a sweet sort of thought — he recalls the way Brienne will blush sometimes, avert those pretty eyes of hers as if she were a story-book maiden and not a wall of solid unrelenting muscle that can kill men in a number of fast and exceptionally painful ways. Perhaps he should have teased her a little; she wouldn’t have skewered him on her sword after such a rescue, after all.

It would be nice to see how far she could blush. And yet—

“It’s too late for all of that,” he says, surprising himself with it. It is, of course, though somehow to put it into words hurts like prodding an open wound. But he will not make a joke out of Brienne, not now. “It’s not like I’d have much to offer her, would I? My respect, my loyalty… that she’s had for a while.  My heart is not worth much —never much knew what to do with it, as it turns out. In another life, perhaps.” He tries to imagine Tywin Lannister’s face if Jaime had ever so much as broached the subject. _Here is the heiress of Tarth, father, she is taller and broader than most maidens, it’s true, but she is the most honest woman in all of the Seven bloody Kingdoms. She cares not for gold or power, but she might be romanced after a gallant rescue or two._ It should hurt bitterly to think of his father with Tyrion right here, considering, but for a moment he feels hysterical laughter bubble up inside him. Jaime Lannister, contemplating marriage at last, an aging cripple at the edge of the world, like the bloody joke he is. This is why Jaime doesn’t drink: it makes him morose and loosens his tongue – it makes things tumble out of him that ought to stay safely locked inside. “There will be even less for me to offer once this war is done,” he says, and after that the words keep coming, pouring out of a corner of his mind often left unexamined. “My name would be a curse —the Lannister gold will soon be gone, _I_ will be gone, because there’s only so many undead I can slay with _this_ hand, and then what would she be left with? She’d have to carry my blackened reputation on her shoulders, rather than her own heroic deeds. I won’t have that, Tyrion.  I’ve done enough damage to her name as it is.”

When he’s managed to tear his eyes away from the bottom of his empty mug, and back into Tyrion’s face, he finds his brother staring at him as if he’d sprouted wings and dragon scales and declared himself the last surviving Targaryen.

“Seven hells,” Tyrion says as if he can’t quite believe it: “you are actually in love with her.”

Jaime has always been slow on the uptake – he knows this about himself. So when he hears it put into words like this, and knows in his bones that it is right, that this is how he’s felt for longer than he cares to admit, it comes with an awful bitter certainty that he has squandered the one chance he had at a more honest life. _This is what only loving Cersei got me: a lifetime devoted to the wrong woman._ Years wasted denying himself, silencing his conscience, stubbornly clinging to pitiful scraps of affection while lying to himself about what he truly wanted. Years of watching Brienne leave, Brienne with the armor he’d had made for her, the sword he’d given her, and such unspoken sorrow in her face. He shouldn’t have let her go, he knows this now: he should have ridden after her like a madman and pledged his own sword to the cause. He would have treasured every moment sleeping on hard ground next to her, eating dry meat and even drier bread, babbling on and on to get a rise out of her, a smile, a word, _anything_ so long as she looked at him with those eyes again.

Tyrion gives a pointed cough in his direction. For a moment, it’s like that first time he was unseated at a tournament when he was but a green lad; a strange disorienting feeling rather like coming back to yourself after a nasty blow to the head. Jaime swallows, and says nothing. His brother looks on, as if he doesn’t quite know what to do with him, but is resigned to his fate:

“Well, as far as epiphanies go,” Tyrion says at last. “You really have terrible timing.”

 

 

 

***

By the time he finds himself stumbling through the corridors, he is —if not actually, properly _sober_ — somewhat more coordinated at the very least. There’s a queer sort of feeling at the pit of his stomach that he suspects has little to do with drink or want of food. More than anything, he realizes, he aches to see Brienne, to talk to her. To say what exactly, he doesn’t know: he thinks he’d be happy just staring at her, pathetically grateful and adoring like a dog groveling at her feet. She is owed quite a good share of groveling and more besides after the stunt she pulled in his defense this afternoon, and yet she had all but run away from him once the Dragon Queen agreed to pardon him.

Winterfell, however, seems entirely made up of identical drafty corridors, lined with identical wooden doors —which one is the door to Brienne’s room he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t wish to make a scene awakening dour Northmen from their beds just for a glimpse of her homely face.

 _You’ll see her in the morning_ , Tyrion had said when Jaime left his quarters, looking for the room he’d been assigned. It seemed sensible to go in search of his own quarters for all of a minute, until the desperate urge to see her won over. So now he skulks awkwardly at a corner of the castle, hoping to find a guard, a servant, _anyone_ that might have a clue where the sworn sword to the Lady of Winterfell sleeps, but there’s no one. And what would they say anyway, if they saw the Kingslayer slipping into the chambers of an unmarried high-born lady in the middle of the night? Perhaps they’ll feed him to Daenerys’ dragons after all.

They will want him at a strategy meeting early this morning, Tyrion said. He ought to stop wasting time, sleep off the drink, and worry about not making a complete ass of himself tomorrow. He did come all the way here to fight for the living after all. So he turns around dejectedly, ready to head for his room— and, impossibly, he sees her.

Brienne herself, lumbering and awkward with a ratty blanket around her shoulders to ward off the cold, is standing five strides from him. He stares at her like an apparition, drinks her in in all her improbable splendor: the impossible height, the strength and dignity of her, the mop of straw hair, uncharacteristically mussed and soft. And the shock in her eyes, her beautiful eyes, so very blue.

“Ser,” she starts. Jaime does not let her finish.

“I was hoping to speak to you.”

She blinks, mouth still open like a fish out of water. It doesn’t make her look any prettier, really, but the sight warms his heart all the same. “I was- I was hoping to speak to you as well,” she replies.

“In the middle of the night?”

She blushes then, all red and splotchy up her neck and ears, leaving a burning trail on her fair skin until it reaches her freckled cheeks. It’s now Jaime’s favourite sight in the whole world. “They told me you were with your brother and I did not wish to intrude,” she says stiffly, not quite meeting his eyes. “I am sorry, it’s late, I should not bother you.”

“Brienne.” She looks up at the word. No respectful “lady” before it, or a less flattering epithet as he would have given her a long time ago. Perhaps she is surprised at his candor, but formalities seem absurd at this stage, at this gods-forsaken hour.

“Yes?”

“May we talk somewhere private?”

She nods briskly, and turns around, obviously expecting him to follow. Jaime walks behind her, eyes fixed on the tense line of her shoulders, her clenched jaw, and the back of her neck: red, oddly vulnerable and far too inviting. He was close after all – her room is down the corner, a few paces away to the right. He probably walked by it a few minutes ago. Brienne opens the door gently, mindful of the creaking hinges, and awkwardly nods his way before walking inside. Jaime follows.

The room is so sparse it could have belonged to one of those dreadful sparrows. There’s a bed, barely a cot, really, with simple, coarse looking bedding looking rumpled and furs to ward off the cold thrown to the side. There’s a window, narrow and barred, and a sad looking bedside table with one candle on it. And on the corner, one single chair, with the armour he gave her on it, glinting under the flickering light. Oathkeeper, he realizes, is still strapped to her hip, the fanciful belt, made by the finest artisans of King’s Landing and adorned with the suns and moons of Tarth, looking incongruous when set against her simple Northern attire. She must have gotten up from the bed and strapped Oathkeeper on before leaving the room. Did she expect to have to cut down many villains before finding his room, two corridors away?

As if reading his thoughts, Brienne bows her head and busies herself with unbuckling the belt, her hair, now slightly longer than he remembers, falling into her eyes, shielding them from view. She starts when he reaches for the sword, but complies without a word, holding it up for inspection. He recalls a similar moment in his tent, with Lannister crimson staining Brienne’s cheeks red as she foolishly tried to return Oathkeeper to him. As if he’d let her. Now, Jaime’s fingers merely trace the adorned scabbard, looking rather worn after all this time, but still fine. Brienne’s own fingers, long and strong, clutch at the sword. Her knuckles are white, the skin dried and cracked from the cold. Jaime absurdly longs to kiss them.

“You’ve used it well,” he says. “I’d love to see you fight with it.” A foolish thing to say, perhaps: she’ll be riding off to battle against the dead in a matter of days, and these gifts he’s given her, and her own skill, will be the only things to protect her from certain death. But Brienne relaxes her grip, and her lips relax too, into something that almost resembles a smile. He moves back slightly so she can maneuver around the small room, until she’s set Oathkeeper against the chair, the Lion pommel catching the light.  There, she seems to grasp that, if the chair is occupied, they have no place to sit but her bed, and seems to freeze on the spot, mortified. Jaime wants to laugh: this woman has bathed him, dressed him, cared for him when he was weak and delirious, and now she cannot bear the thought of sitting next to him, fully clothed if not fully armoured, for the impropriety of it all. Still, he is charmed by her awkwardness, and waits patiently for Brienne to resign herself to their immodest circumstances, sit down on the bed, and wordlessly gesture at him so he joins her.

“It is good to see you,” she says, which is ridiculous, really, because she _won’t look at him_ : her hands are resting primly on her lap, her eyes downcast, her posture ramrod straight. If he didn’t know better, he’d think her afraid, which is an absurd thought: Brienne of Tarth fears no man, least of all him.

 _I would look on your plain, freckled, blushing face forever if you’d let me_ , he thinks but does not say. No use scaring the lady away now, is there? Instead, he takes a breath and tries to put into words what he’s been meaning to say, as plainly and honestly as he can.

“I owe you my life, Brienne.” She starts at that, and turns to look at him. “Had it not been for you today, I doubt I’d be alive still.”

“I pay my debts too, ser,” she answers softly, her eyes shining in the dim light. “You saved me twice, and from a fate worse than death too. There was no embellishment today. I have no way with words, so I wouldn’t know how to embellish even if I wanted to. But I meant what I said when I called you a good man. I meant every word.”

“No ser,” he pleads, paying no heed to the desperation in his voice, or her surprise at his words. “Call me by my name, Brienne, _please_.”

“Jaime,” her voice has never seemed so gentle as it is now, as she sounds off his name in her mouth. “Jaime, you must know- that is, I am sure you know…”

He has been a coward long enough. Now, he owes her honesty, and honesty he’ll give her:

“Every time I watched you walk away from me, I wanted to go after you,” he says. He won’t look away from her soft, surprised gaze, and he will not falter. “I should have followed, I realize now. It took me far too long to realize, so long it fills me with shame. And I have no right now, Brienne, to ask you for anything, so I will not. You deserve better than this. But for a while, with you, I somehow got it into my thick skull that I could be something better than the sorry wretch I was when you met me. I don’t deserve your good opinion of me, but I am grateful for it, and for having seen you once more. I came North for you. I wish I had come sooner.”

No one would think her ugly now, if they could see her like this, if they could watch the disbelief on her face fade away into hope, into sweetness as a timid smile slowly breaks upon her face like sunlight. One of her hands covers his own, and there’s no hesitancy there, her grip strong and sure. “You are here now,” is all she says, as if it was a simple as that, as if that was all that mattered.

He’ll never know who moves first. All he knows is he is falling forward and her other hand, big and warm and comforting, is against his jaw, tilting his face towards hers as they kiss. It’s unhurried, which is ridiculous because Jaime can count the days he has left on this earth with the fingers of his one remaining hand, but he can’t bear to rush this and miss out on the aching novelty of it, the yearning, unexpected tenderness of her. She can’t have much experience, if any, but she seems to know what she wants, angling her body towards his, letting go of his hand to cup his face and return with interest each kiss he gives her. He is not a religious man, and if he were, he probably shouldn’t dare to ask the Gods for anything, not after the things he’s done. But he would not be too proud to beg, he thinks; he’d pray on his knees gladly and debase himself if necessary, for Brienne to be spared when the Long Night came, and for this moment to stretch on for as long as the Gods would grant.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title once again stolen from ee cummings. Mistakes are my own.


End file.
